Citation

Garoupa N. Int. Rev. Law Econ. 2009; 29(1): 25-28.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.irle.2008.07.001

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Mandatory prosecution is inefficient according to legal economists. We argue that when prosecutors are fairly insulated from their performance or are highly risk-averse mandatory prosecution is better than selective prosecution. This result has important implications for comparative law. We use our findings to provide a positive explanation for the stylized fact that mandatory prosecution generally prevails in civil law jurisdictions whereas selective prosecution is typical of common law jurisdictions.